Bengaluru: The woman holding the lamp in Mysuru’s celebrated painting ‘Glow of Hope,’ also known as the ‘Woman with the lamp,’ died at 102 on Tuesday evening.
The painting, a watercolour masterpiece by SL Haldankar, is housed in the Sri Jayachamarajendra Art Gallery at the Jaganmohan Palace in Mysuru. It is one of the most prized possessions as well as a major attraction at the gallery.
The woman in the painting was Gita Uplekar, SL Haldankar’s third daughter. She was staying at Kolhapur since the 1940s after her marriage to jeweller Krishnakant Uplekar.
According to the family, Gita Uplekar died at her daughter’s house in Kolhapur in western Maharashtra on Tuesday evening after a brief illness.
Gita Uplekar is survived by two daughters and a son and was staying in the house of the daughter who lives in the US.
‘Glow of Hope’ was painted in 1945-46, almost seven decades ago, yet holds the same amount of fascination for art lovers all over the country as then.
Though the masterpiece is Haldankar’s creation, it has been wrongly attributed to legendary painter Raja Ravi Verma.